January 2016

For Gandhi, as for most Hindus, your religion isn't just a part of you; it's your whole life. Jesus' willingness to give it all, to suffer and die for Truth makes him a Hindu saint. If we could learn anything from the Hindu Jesus it would be that sacrificing oneself for God is an essential part of the good life. Hindus are better at it than Christians, according to Gandhi, and I think he's probably right.
Here in the West, our biggest obstacle to following Jesus has always been our own ego. In India, the soul or self is one with the Universal Soul (Brahman). To recognize that is to be liberated from the fears, cravings and conflicts that cause us so much suffering. But in the West, our Soul is not one with anything. Instead, it stands alone. We consider it not one but Number One. Here we major in Self-Preservation not Self-Sacrifice. And because we try so hard to gain our life, we end up losing it in a thousand ways. Rarely do we risk losing our life for Christ in order to save it. [Mark 8:36]

In general, Buddhists are a lot more comfortable with religious pluralism than Christians are. But that is the world we live in today, and one thing Buddhists can do is help us Christians get beyond our dualistic, either/or way of thinking about everything. To survive on this planet, we need more both/and thinking. We already have some practice holding seemingly incompatible ideas together. We say that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. We say that God is both Three and One. So could we possibly say that both Christianity and Buddhism are true?

To the surprise of most Christians, Muslims feel a special closeness to Jesus. For one thing, Jesus and Muhammad stand together because, in Islam, there was no prophet that stands between them. And Jesus is mentioned 93 times in the Qur'an, more than Abraham. His mother Mary even has a book named after her, the only woman so honored in the Qur'an.
But that isn't all. There are literally hundreds of stories and sayings of Jesus recorded in Muslim literature outside of the Qur'an. These references date from the eighth to the eighteenth centuries. Some have clear connections to our Gospels. Others have parallels with other early Christian works that didn't make it into the New Testament. And still others are completely original. Why this continuing interest in Jesus?

Jews teach us that Jesus is no slouch when it comes to holy living. Our Jewish Jesus is challenging. He is always calling us out for making excuses for not living up to the love of God. Of course, we complain that there is no way we could ever, on our own, fulfill the Law. And that is very true. But the point is that Jesus came and did fulfill it, and by his grace and mercy, those who follow him can, too. So let me summarize Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount this way: God has given you one precious life. What are you going to do with it? You may not know it, but you are a partner in God's redemption of the world. What are you going to do about your little corner of it?

The turning of the year gives us a great opportunity to go home by another road. Today, let's make a resolution not to take the road of fear, not to make decisions based on fear, but to be courageous and take the road of faith. Believe me, we will have many opportunities to put our resolve to the test in the next year.